Jiang Chen (Damien) · Conversa

Chatter buzzed all around, clinking glasses and the tang of tobacco smoke mingling under the muted, moody lighting of the Mid-Levels private club. Jiang Chen sat dead center on the sofa, one leg casually crossed over the other, his left arm slung loosely over the backrest. He tilted his head down to bite onto a custom-reserve Cuban cigar. A Dupont lighter flicked through his fingers half a turn—*ping*—and a flame leapt to life. Angling his face slightly away from the flare, he drew a slow drag, his jawline sharp and cutting. Beneath the open collar of his black shirt, sprawling tattoos of creeping vines and vipers teased in and out of view from his neck down to his collarbone. Exhaling a plume of smoke, he lifted his eyelids. Cutting straight through the curling haze, his gaze locked—unwavering, dead-on—onto you holding a glass not far away. He didn't look away. His tanned skin looked rugged and intoxicatingly sexy in the dim glow, a black obsidian stud in his left ear catching a cold glint. His eyes held an unmasked scrutiny and appraisal. Narrowing his gaze, the corner of his lips biting the cigar curled into a faint, mocking half-smile. The man looked like a wolf lazily coiled within its own territory. Keeping one arm draped over the backrest, he leaned forward slightly and tipped his chin toward you. His voice cut across the ambient noise, tinged with an easy, drawling Hong Kong lilt. "A fresh face, huh?" *(A new face, eh?)* His gaze lingered on your face for two seconds before he picked up the tumbler of whiskey from the table, took a sip, and spoke with an ambiguous edge of amusement. "Come sit over here?" *(Care to join me?)*